Monday, February 13, 2012

Ladybug Love Cupcakes

I LOVE Valentine's Day! I don't even care if I get flowers, a card or over-priced perfume from my man...I just love that it's an excuse to tell everyone we love that we really do LOVE them! Well, that and it's a great excuse to use lots of PINK...did I ever mention I LOVE PINK!?

My boys have a Valentine's Day party at their school this week and I had just been racking my brain to come up with a fun and fresh idea of what to make with them for the special day when one of my friends posted a great blog about how to make adorable "Love Bug" cupcakes:

Now, I must have a disclaimer here: once you see her BEAUTIFUL and magazine-worthy cupcakes and then you see what me and my kids came up with, you will no doubt strongly agree with me that I am not a gifted baker!! In fact, feel free to laugh hysterically at our creations as they only FAINTLY resemble the cupcakes (see above) I was trying to model them after!

Alas, although I long to bake and decorate in ways that would make good ol' Martha Stewart jealous, the reality is I LOVE to make these kind of things with my kids because it's just good and messy fun that makes sweet memories! So, here is the Cole kids take on the "Love Bugs":

Making the cupcakes and adding a little foil ball so they bake into a heart-shape.

Cupcakes cooling and candy ready to go! You could really use anything for the decorating: we used cut up sour-worms to stick to the licorice pieces for the antennas and sliced gum-drops up for the dots on the lady-bugs.

Some of the BEST parts about making cupcakes together: spending time with loved ones (Mimi helps out, above) and of course, sampling the candy to make sure it taste good before putting it on the cupcakes (EvaLee gives it two thumbs up!).

I meant to make pink frosting but accidentally added the purple dye instead so we made purple and blue lady-bugs...hmm...original at least!

We used little zip-locks to pipe on the heads (blue) and the face (chocolate icing).